No. 1 mistake: Losing vision
Today's Entrepreneur is KamranV,CEO of POP-AUT. According to his VEQ KamranV is a thought leader and is good at marketing management and product management.
KamranV's company POP-AUT is currently competing in Vator's Splash LA start-up competition.
Vator’s community is the home to entrepreneurs who embrace their passion and follow their dreams. Our profiles allow members to express themselves by sharing their interests, lessons learned, as well as bits and pieces of their roller-coaster journey.
These profiles give entrepreneurs an opportunity to showcase themselves and tell their story. So if you are an entrepreneur, a serial entrepreneur, or even an aspiring entrepreneur, we'd like to hear from you.
I am a(n):
Concert Film/Album Producer and Technologist
Companies I've founded or co-founded:
POP-AUT, CyKiK, Bedrock LA, Spaceland Recordings, College Battle
If you are an entrepreneur, why?
I want to change the world.
My favorite startups:
AirBnB, Kickstarter, Square, Mint, TripIt, Waze
What's most frustrating and rewarding about entrepreneurship/innovation?
Frustrating = funding and idea bigger than you can fund yourself.
Rewarding = people getting genuine joy out of what you do.
What's the No. 1 mistake entrepreneurs make?
Losing vision.
What are the top three lessons you've learned as an entrepreneur?
1. Never give up.
2. Stick to your vision.
3. Be in business with people that you enjoy.
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Kristin Karaoglu
Woman of many skills: Database System Engineer; SplashX event producer; Author of Startup Teams
All author postsRelated Companies, Investors, and Entrepreneurs
POP-AUT
Startup/Business
Joined Vator on
POP-AUT || automatically PAY THE ARTIST+
POP-AUT is automatic, collaborator-validated payments for creative work such as film, music, games and art.
WHO
POP-AUT comes from the experiences of its founder KamranV. Kamran simultaneously managed an internationally-touring band and honed his talent in New Media at Interscope Records as its head of production and business development. His work at Interscope was the beginnings of what is now social media; building tools and platforms allowing artist and fans to communicate directly. In this time, KamranV also served as producer for DVD-Audio (surround sound) releases of albums from Sting, Nine Inch Nails, and Beck.
With no additional staff or funding, he started Interscope's mobile business in collaboration with Universal Music's eLabs. This project generated $12 million in its first year. In its second year, KamranV co-founded Universal Music Mobile U.S.A. as its head of Marketing. That year UMM posted $40 Million before his exit in 2006 to start the Spaceland Recordings live concert record label.
WHY
Budgets for creative works continue to shrink however the output of collaborative work is more than ever in history. As a result, creative projects have become mostly speculative business relationships, pooling everyone's collective resources in the hopes that the project will create long-term benefit for all involved. Sadly, even with the best of intentions by all parties and the most clear, fair contract, processing royalties quickly becomes expensive and inaccurate. Too often creative projects fail due to the ineffectiveness of paying its creators. In the age of online banking and digital media distribution with companies like PayPal, iTunes, YouTube and Square as cornerstones, there are few excuses. Enter POP-AUT for transparent, accurate, inexpensive, simple and automatic distributions and reports for all involved. POP-AUT is:
- Low cost of Collaboration - virtually eliminate accounting overhead, transactional fees, lawsuits and audits.
- Removing the Business from Creativity - once the projects/deals are set up, POP-AUT takes care of the back office on behalf of all parties equally. Creators stay focused on creation.
THE CHALLENGE
- With the rise of the creative class and its thirst for constant creation and sharing, the high overhead of every creator having their own royalty police doesn’t work.
- PRODUCTION costs have come down, making Apps, Film and Music less expensive to make.
- DISTRIBUTION costs have come down, allowing anyone to distribute products globally.
- MARKETING costs have come down, making finding customers easier and less expensive.
- However, the cost of PAYING EVERYONE involved in a work has gone UP. There are dozens of points of distribution and parties to pay in every creative project. Paying people costs money.
- CREATORS and necessary COLLABORATORS have not yet been able to make direct, transparent, inexpensive and timely payments to collaborators. Without this, the creative economy is broken.
THE POP-AUT SOLUTIONPOP-AUT simplifies the entire payment process and solves this at any point in the payment food-chain, staying flexible to achieve broad adoption quickly.
- Self-Service: Creatives confirm relationships between themselves by simply using the POP-AUT MANAGER of Relationships (PAM-R).
- Transparent Accounting: open programming and meta data standards to tag and track media consumption and transactions available to all parties involved in a creative work.
- Direct Payments: royalties are paid quickly and directly. Anyone can have a POP-AUT account and be paid directly.
- Feels FREE: POP-AUT is has no upfront costs. POP-AUT doesn’t make money unless the creator does. Minimal fees with a cap.
- Lead by Example: to market our concept POP-AUT will produce/fund/partner on collaborative, low-cost projects such as concert films that make creatives money. Live our concept: By Artists for Artists.
STATUS
- PROTOTYPE: POP-AUT completed the initial build of its software. This software lays the foundation of the POP-AUT Manager of Relationships (PAM-R). Select users may manually upload CSV files from services such as IODA as well as manual transactions with detailed reporting and relationship confirmations going to approved collaborators.
- 1.0 (March 2013): This release of POP-AUT layers PAMR on top of YouTube/Adsense payment, reporting and banking systems allowing clear, graphical distribution of reports and automatic payments to collaborators.
- GROWTH: More sales channels, more markets, automated tax forms, creative credit syndication and more.
KamranV and his team are experienced in managing businesses, having earned perspective as a current executive-strategist and marketeer for multinational clients such as Gibson Guitar, SONOS, Case-Mate and Levis while continuing to create; recently as Co-Director and Producer of Nine Inch Nails’ final concert film, direct work in artist development via his studio Bedrock.LA as well as with College Battle of the Bands and the Grammys.
WHAT DOES POP-AUT MEAN?
POP-AUT is short for POP-AUTomatic. Similar to the phase pop ART, the words are meant to inspire creatives to collaborate easily and directly: this is POP-AUT.
KamranV _
Joined Vator on
-Producer of concert films an DVD-Audio's from NIN, Sting and Beck. -Strategist for Gibson, Hyundai, Sonos & Levis -Grammy P&E LA Chapter -Co-founder of Universal Music Mobile USA via Interscope